Vientiane · 2004 · citedThe Coroner's Lunch
Colin Cotterill
Cotterill's Vientiane belongs to the first year of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, a shabby, watchful riverside capital where the new order runs on rumour and shortage. Dr Siri Paiboun, drafted at seventy-two into the job of national coroner, works out of a broken-down morgue at Mahosot Hospital and carries his cases from the ministries and the Mekong quay to the That Luang stupa, and once far north to the Hmong highlands of the Plain of Jars.
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